Ron White: 'Last time I was in Savannah there was a fight'

Comedy as a career was something comedy superstar Ron White didn’t even imagine.

“I’m from a little bitty town in northwest Texas,” he says. “At Career Day, they didn’t talk about stand-up.

“But I was always a fan of it. I always loved listening to comedy albums.

“Even as a little kid, I had an old album I would play over and over and over,” White says. “I’m not sure I understood the jokes, I just loved to hear the laughing.”

As a child, White didn’t have much success in school. “I had a learning deficit disorder,” he says. “I wasn’t a good student. I really struggled with that kind of stuff.”

But White was naturally funny. “There was a little bit of tension in the family, and being funny broke up the tension at home and in the classroom,” he says. “I knew I was funny, and I parlayed it into a career.”

White served in the Navy, where he was given the nickname “Tater Salad.” Fellow sailors teased him because he loved potato salad so much.

Several jobs followed his Navy tour, and it wasn’t until he was 29 that White went to an open mic and tried stand-up.

“My first set was pretty good, but the second was horrible,” he says.

But White kept at it, and eventually Jeff Foxworthy became his mentor.

“He said I was really funny but needed to put a punch line at the end of a joke,” White says. “He showed me how to structure jokes so the funny part lasts.”

As a result, White is best known as the cigar-smoking, scotch-drinking comic from the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, which ran from January 2000 through March 2003. He performed with Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and Larry the Cable Guy in more than 90 cities.

The tour grossed more than $15 million and was filmed as “Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie.” After a theater run, it was presented on Comedy Central and was the highest-rated movie in the channel’s history.

On Sept. 30, White will bring his latest tour, “200 Proof,” to Savannah. Even today, he has no master plan when writing his jokes.

“I don’t base it on anything,” White says. “If somebody learns something while I’m on stage, it was a mistake.

“Some people feel obligated to be a teacher and a preacher. I’m a comic. I want to make it as funny as I can.”

“I couldn’t see that coming at all. I was just blind-sided with funny. We saw ‘The Book of Mormon’ and that was also outrageously funny.”

For a man whose retirement plan was “maybe something neat will happen,” White has been wildly successful. On his own, he has earned a Gold Record and starred in three of the top-rated one-hour specials in Comedy Central history.

His autobiography, “Ron ‘Tater Salad’ White: I Had the Right to Remain Silent ... But I Didn’t Have the Ability,” was a New York Times bestseller. More than 10 million of his CDs and DVDs have been sold, and he is one of the three highest-grossing comedians in the nation.

April 27, 2009, was even designated as “Ron White Day” by Texas legislative officials.

“I got to address the House of Representatives with my mom standing there, and Margo was there with her mother and brother,” White says. “I told the representatives, ‘I can’t believe you guys have to work on Ron White Day.’”

Currently, White is working on a new, more extensive autobiography. “Most of it is just transcripts of my shows,” he says.

“They fronted me a ridiculous amount of money and they still haven’t made me give it back. I added a bunch of stories.

“I’m a storyteller offstage, too,” White says. “I drank with friends and had them remind me of stories I’ve told in the past. This is much more comprehensive and most of it is about my younger life, not about comedy.”

White had a supporting acting role in the feature film “Sex and the City 2,” and also had a role in “Horrible Bosses,” starring Jennifer Anniston and Kevin Spacey. But he vastly prefers stand-up to acting.

“On film, I’m trying to be whoever they want me to be,” he says. “In stand-up, it’s all me. I like there to be no transformation.”

White has a role in the upcoming drama “Jayne Mansfield’s Car,” which is directed by Billy Bob Thornton and stars Robert Duvall. “We filmed in Georgia,” White says. “I met Billy Bob the night before Ron White Day in Texas and he wrote me a note to read to the Texas legislature.

“We stayed up all night long. He’s as funny as he can be. He did ‘Sling Blade’ for us and it was amazing.”

In March 2009, White was awarded the Armed Forces Foundation’s Patriot Award for his work in raising money to help wounded soldiers through his annual Comedy Salute to the Troops. “I do it because this country is at war,” he says.

“These young men and women come back blown to pieces,” White says. “That’s our responsibility forever on. We have to take care of them every way we can.

“They asked me to go to Walter Reed years ago, then I went outside and cried like a baby,” he says. “Doing a show is kind of an easy thing for me to do.”

The last time White performed in Savannah proved to be a memorable event. “There was a fistfight in the second row,” he says.

“It was all elbows and fists. I don’t think it was my fault it happened. Anyone who was there will remember.

“I also had a bad-ass fried pork chop while I was there,” White says. “I still think about it. Savannah has some great food.”